What XRay Vision Can't Show
by Ace of Gallifrey
Summary: Oneshot anthology. AUs and Offscreenville galore! Primarily but not exclusively Clois. Currently up: Salvation AU. Clark went with the Kandorians. Lois hates this plan.
1. Softer Inside

**Title- **What X-Ray Vision Can't Show**  
>CharactersPairings- **various**  
>Rating- <strong>T just to be on the safe side**  
>Summary-<strong> A selection of missing scenes, alternative episodes, and drabbles, just things that were implied, or which needed to happen but didn't... on-screen anyway. Various characters and pairings, mostly designed to fit seamlessly into canon, a few AUs of one kind or another.

**A/N-** I grew up with Smallville. It was the first show I ever seriously followed as a teen/young woman. I memorized episodes, collected quotes like it was going out of style, and made lists of my favorite moments so I'd remember the progression of them later.

But I quit watching after the 7th season, feeling it had strayed too far from the Superman mythos I was raised on and loved dearly for me to continue to enjoy it any longer (translation: I wanted to punch Clark and didn't like feeling disappointed in my hero). Then, two months ago, I saw an add for the box set of the complete series, and part of me wondered, "Whatever happened on that show?" A little Google magic and more pop-up adds than I can count later, and I had blown through the final three seasons (completely neglecting my schoolwork in the process).  
>To my amazement, those final three seasons (particularly the tenth) were some of the best television I have ever watched. The beautifully developed romance between Lois and Clark, the Kandor and Darkseid plots (and to a lesser extent the Doomsday plot), Mrs. Kent as the Red Queen, Mercy's redemption... I have never loved the show as much as I did watching the final seasons, and it inspired me to step back into Smallville fanfic. Yes, you heard me, BACK. I used to write on another account. I won't tell you which, because I just reread some of the fics and they were <em>terrible<em> (in my defense, I was 15 and while my skill as a word-smith was already well-honed, my ability to craft stories? Not so much), and would delete them if I could remember my old password.

With that in mind, I've got a few potential long-term projects in mind for the SV fandom. A crossover with Gilmore Girls (can't you just see Lois Lane and Lorelai Leigh clashing horns?) that I think has some serious potential, a very strange and fun time travel piece which does _not_ feature Lois or Clark going to the past (but _does_ involve the Legion ring and an unsuspecting Jimmy Olsen), and a bizarre Chlex-y piece which is weird because I don't ordinarily ship Chlex... but if I add one more long-term project to my overloaded writing schedule, my brain will explode. Therefore, I'm trying appeasing the plot bunnies with this oneshot collection.

Now, let's conclude this novel-length A/N and move on to my first piece of SV fanfic in over 4 years.

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><p>[<em>Title<em>]: Softer Inside  
>[<em>Episode<em>]: Pariah  
>[<em>Characters<em>]: Clark and Lois, themes of Clalicia  
>[<em>Inspiration<em>]: I adored Alicia, and it always bugged me that after everyone spent a whole episode Alicia-bashing, no one could even manage to apologize for how they treated her, or actually muster enough sincerity to tell Clark they were sorry for her death. I'm sure these kinds of apologies happened, but I'd really like to have actually seen it. This scene takes place after the conversation with the Kents, but before Lois (unwittingly) tells Chloe how to handle knowing The Secret.

* * *

><p><em>"So long, my honey, so long.<br>__Too bad you had to drift away  
><em>_'Cause I could use some company  
><em>_Right here on this road, on this road I'm on today."  
><em>-Janis Joplin

* * *

><p>The repetitive thump of the ball against the slatted wall of the loft, a hypnotic rhythm that seemed muted in the slumbrous dusty atmosphere of the barn, was the only sound besides Clark's own heartbeat in his ears. He was listening close to his own heart, because it was easier than sorting out what was going on inside it.<p>

He felt detached and vague. It was as if he were outside his own body, floating somewhere near the rafters, observing himself dispassionately chucking the ratty old tennis ball against the wall opposite him over and over again. He was grateful for the sensation of separation, to be honest. Just over forty-eight hours ago, he had almost taken a life, and he wasn't quite ready to deal with that yet. Grief, and guilt over Alicia's death, was quite enough on his emotional plate at present. He had no desire to add an examination of his violent reaction towards Tim Westcott to the mix.

Another heartbeat joined his, and a set of purposeful footsteps sounded on the stairs up to the loft.

He didn't have to look up to know it was Lois. Her stride, with those long legs and the natural overflow of energy that drove every motion she made, was unmistakeable. She paused at the top of the stairs.

"Hey, Smallville," she said in the gentlest tone he could ever recall hearing from her.

Clark hurled the tennis ball once more. "Hi, Lois," he said listlessly.

She took his greeting as an invitation to join him. She folded herself down into a sitting position next to him, back resting against the old couch. For a few minutes she didn't say a word, and that drifting part of him that couldn't really bring itself to focus on anything marveled that she actually had the ability to be silent for that long.

Eventually, though, her loquacious nature won out and she inquired, "How you doing?"

He shrugged.

"You really loved her, didn't you?"

Oh boy, wasn't _that_ a can of worms all to itself? To be honest, Clark was used to thinking of love as a sort of creeping, subtly ever-present, unfulfilled desire that lurked at the back of your heart and pounced on you at unexpected moments. What he had felt for Alicia- _still_ felt, even with her gone- wasn't like that. That feeling had been full of wild, exhilarating freedom of self and intense physical attraction and bursts of emotional tenderness. Alicia had been a whirlwind, and the emotion she provoked in him every bit as much of one. It wasn't love the way he had felt for Lana, but he couldn't help thinking that in a twisted way, that was a good thing.

"Yeah," he answered truthfully.

A complex look covered Lois's features, and she sighed almost inaudibly. She seemed to search for the right words for a moment.

"Look," she said frankly, "I'm not really good with the whole sympathy, heart-to-heart, talk-about-the-personal-tragedies thing. But I know what it feels like to lose someone you really love. And you know what? It sucks. You feel like your world's been knocked all off its axis. But it does get better, I promise. It takes time, but one day you wake up and you find that it doesn't hurt as much anymore."

Clark nodded, but he still did not turn his head to meet her attentive eyes. "What kills me," he said with deliberation, "is that I was the one person she trusted to believe in her even when the rest of the world wouldn't. And I betrayed that trust when it mattered the most."

Lois's expression was a blend of discomfort and sympathy, with a hint of guilt showing through. "No one would blame you for that, Smallville," she said firmly. "Not even Alicia. She was framed. Tim went out of his way to make sure every sign pointed to Alicia; you had no way of knowing. And I'm sure the fact that you stuck up for her even when everyone you loved was telling you otherwise meant a lot to her."

"But in the end, even I abandoned her," he replied dully, catching the tennis ball flat in his palm with a weighty thump. "She died thinking that the one person that she loved suspected her of murder. How do I forgive myself for that?"

"I don't know," Lois replied. "But for what it's worth, I'm sorry for- for my part in all this. I barely knew the girl, but I still jumped to the conclusion that she'd done it. I do that more than I should... just take half the evidence and start pointing fingers, and it's not exactly my most charming trait. I'm sorry that this time around it hurt you and her."

Something deep down inside him warmed slightly. In the days since he had found Alicia hanging, no one had acknowledged even a shred of regret for making Alicia the town pariah. People had expressed regret at her death, and her mother of course was beside herself, but that was as far as it went. No one but him seemed to carry the weight of guilt for making her final days a hell of suspicion and persecution. Knowing that Lois, at least, felt bad for her role in tearing Alicia down unexpectedly eased some of the weight that had been sitting in his heart.

At last, Clark turned his gaze from the flat swathe of wood he had been staring at, and raised his eyes to meet hers. "Thanks," he said quietly. "And... thank you. For stopping me the other day."

It was Lois's turn to look uncomfortable and turn her face away.

"I've never... I've never lost control like that before," he said.

It was true. He had done heinous things on occasion when red-K had stripped him of any morality or inhibition, but even then he had always felt strong and fully in control of himself. He didn't know how to handle himself when confronted with the almost animalistic rage that had overtaken him when he was face-to-face with Alicia's murderer. Even though he knew it was wrong, even though he knew he would regret killing Tim, in that moment he honestly had not cared. That terrified him, knowing he was capable of that level of violence and fury.

Luckily for him, Lois had been there. She had followed him right into the fray and with words that sounded so much like his father it amazed him, she had brought him back from that precipice he had been poised upon. He was more grateful than she probably knew that she had been there. He wondered if anyone but his parents would have had the presence of mind to be able to call him back.

"I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't... I honestly wanted to kill him," Clark told her. He found himself searching her eyes for something, and wasn't sure if he was hoping for sympathy or condemnation.

She leaned her head against the sofa cushion at her back, and it wasn't pity or disgust that he saw reflected in her hazel eyes, but pure understanding. "Someone you loved and who loved you had just been taken away from you for no good reason. You had a right to be angry." Her voice was an unlikely mixture of steel and empathy.

Clark pictured her suddenly kneeling before a grave, promising the cousin who had been closer than a sister that she would call down vengeance on her murderers, whatever it took.

"But you wanna know something?" she asked.

"What?"

"I don't think you would have killed him," she said, sincerity in every word. "Even with what he'd done, vengeance isn't your style. You're not that kind of guy."

Her faith in him, at least insofar as she didn't think him capable of murder, was astounding, given that Clark himself wasn't entirely sure he agreed with her. But then, Lois tended to do that: she astounded him. Every time he thought he knew her and where they stood with each other, she threw another twist into their complicated pseudo-freinemy status.

At the moment, he couldn't recall ever seeing Lois Lane like this, gentle and sensitive and empathetic, and suddenly he realized that this was who she really was. The bravado and the feigned arrogance and the prickly exterior were all very real parts of her, but underneath all her fronting, she was much softer than he had given her credit for. It was something he had experienced before, to a lesser degree. When someone was fierce and strong and fearless all the time, it was easy to forget that they were human underneath that.

It was an ironic thought for him, of all people, to be having, but it was true. It was a lesson he had first learned from Whitney Fordman; no matter how well some people hid it, there was always more going on beneath the surface. And it had never been more true than it was in Lois's case. Because she was sarcastic and annoying and utterly unflappable, sometimes he lost sight of the fact that she was more than just what she let the world see of her.

Alicia had been like that, too. She had hid behind her incredible intellect and her big brown eyes and an occasionally frigid exterior, and he felt he was one of the very few people (indeed, maybe the _only_ one) who had had the privilege to see the spunky, funny, unexpectedly sweet girl that had been hidden behind the veneer of the straight-A student and later obscured by her battle with mental illness.

"I just... can't help but wish I'd had the chance to tell her I believed in her." He hadn't really meant to say it out loud, but it was the thought that was running loops in his head every time his thoughts circled back to Alicia, and somehow it had fallen out of his mouth.

"You can't change the past. All you can do is honor her memory." She got to her feet. "I've gotta run, but I just wanted to stop by and make sure you were doing okay before I head back to Metropolis."

He offered her a lopsided smile somewhat less brilliant than his usual Kent grin. "I'll be okay," he said, oddly touched to know she cared despite their dubious state of armistice.

She smiled and nudged his shoulder in a sympathetic variation on her usual punch to the arm. "Don't let guilt drag you down, Smallville," she said, and made her way down the stairs.

Once again, Clark's was the only heart beating in his ears, but he felt more real and connected to himself again than he had before Lois Lane, of all people, had worked her usual brand of magic and put everything back in perspective.

He wondered briefly how she managed to do that.


	2. It's A Wonderful Life

**A/N-** I know I promised an AU Crimson oneshot next, but this won't leave my brain so you'll just have to deal. I felt like writing an extension of Clark and Lex's conversation in Lexmas, just for kicks. Because only I could inject the most blatantly Lexana episode short of Vessel and Static with a megadose of Clois. It's weird, because writing this made my latent early-season Chlark shipping kick into overdrive, and yet somehow is still Clois.

* * *

><p>[<em>Title<em>]: It's a Wonderful Life  
>[<em>Episode<em>]: Lexmas  
>[<em>Characters<em>]: Good!Lex, Clark, Clois ship  
>[<em>Inspiration<em>]: Because Lillian Luthor clearly didn't check her facts (or else she was lying about everything). Chlark is great, but Clois is better.

* * *

><p>"<em>I talked so much, I'm sure <em>  
><em>I didn't realize I'd gone crazy, <em>  
><em>Didn't catch my bloody nose <em>  
><em>Or that my heart tried to explode. <em>  
><em>I still live with my high school friends; <em>  
><em>Some people never change at all<em>."  
>-Jack's Mannequin<p>

* * *

><p>Lex feels like George Bailey. This dream, or hallucination, or whatever it is, is next to nothing like the plot from the old Jimmy Stewart film, but that's how he feels. He's not getting a glimpse of a dystopic present, but of a utopian future, and he feels like a drowned man given a new lease on life. Free, or close to it. It feels good to be talking to Clark like this again. They've been on shaky terms at best for months, and at worst he suspects that his one-time best friend has begun to see him as more nemesis than ally.<p>

Champagne and curiosity and the warmth in his glowing heart loosen his tongue and he says, couching a question in a joke: "It's something I still can't quite believe. Me and Lana... now how the hell did that happen?"

Clark laughs and shrugs, a grin wide on his face. "You became the kind of man she could love," he says matter-of-factly.

"You mean, the kind of man you've always been?"

Lex can't help but wonder. As long as he's known Clark Kent, the man has been pining for Lana Lang. He finds it hard to believe that such a happy vision of the future can possibly be real. Surely there's something dark, something sinister just waiting to wreck this. Surely if he lives this dream through to the next day, this seemingly content Clark will turn around, declare his love, and Lana will leave him behind with nothing but a son he loves but barely knows and the ink slowly drying on fresh divorce papers.

But Clark only looks at him with a hint of confusion on his face. "And, Lex, you offered her something I didn't."

"What held you back, Clark? I mean, I know you love her... _loved_ her." The correction is hard to make, but the baffled expression still on his old friend's face makes it easier to imagine Lana-and-Clark as past tense.

Clark shrugs. "I guess I just wasn't ready, Lex." A pensive look crosses his face as he studies the frosty and idyllic scenery, and he leans forward, bracing himself on the porch rail with both hands. "Maybe I never will be."

This insecurity of Clark's is something old and familiar, and yet still just as strange to him. Clark has the world on a string, and yet there is some flaw somewhere in him that keeps him tripping over himself and continually getting in his own way.

"What about Chloe?" Lex asks leadingly, thinking of the rapport between the two when they ran into each other at the Christmas tree farm.

At that, though, Clark laughs out loud. "Are you still on that? I've told you a hundred times, Lex: Chloe and I are friends."

So all that banter, all that couple-y vibe between them, isn't based on romantic interest? Bullshit, surely!

"You don't look like just friends to me," Lex points out.

Clark gets that lopsided smile that is reserved for his most wryly honest moments. "You're right, Lex. Chloe and I are more than "just" friends. Chloe's been by my side for some of the worst days of my life, and some of the best. Maybe once upon a time we could've been something more, but we've accepted that and integrated those feelings into our friendship, I guess, and it's made us stronger. Our relationship is complicated, but she's my best friend and I like it that way. Besides," he adds with a smirk, "I don't think her fiance would appreciate me getting in the middle of things."

Lex's eyes widen. "Wait, Chloe's engaged? When did _that_ happen?"

"It's actually pretty recent," Clark confides. "They haven't told a lot of people yet."

"Wow, well who's the lucky guy?"

"He's a photographer named Jimmy Olsen. They've known each other for years, and reconnected a few years ago when Chloe was still working at the Planet. Actually, I think you may have met him a time or two."

Doing his best to play along in the role of this future Lex, he says, "The name does sound familiar." He turns and leans against the porch rail, arms crossed, studying Clark's expression, trying to gauge his feelings about the match. "So you and Chloe really aren't...?"

"No, we really aren't," Clark confirms.

Lex gives him an arch look. "Shame," he comments. "I always thought the two of you were well-suited to each other. So there's really no Someone Special in the life of Clark Kent?"

They've been friends long enough that Clark knows exactly what he's doing. He laughs and looks away, and while it could be a trick of the multitudes of Christmas lights strung around the porch, Lex is pretty sure Clark is turning red.

"I didn't say that," he says.

"So there is someone," Lex says triumphantly.

"In my dreams, anyway," Clark replies wistfully.

"So who is this mystery girl?"

Clark doesn't respond, just turning a deeper shade of scarlet instead.

"Come on, Clark, you can tell me," Lex prods. On a guess, he adds, "I thought we'd decided to tell each other everything from here on out?"

At that, Clark sighs, and runs a hand through his hair in consternation. "It's Lois, okay?"

Lex is pretty sure that if he had a hairline, his eyebrows would have buried themselves in it. "Lois _Lane_? Really?"

"I know, I know," Clark groans, running a hand over his face. "It's ridiculous. It's _beyond_ ridiculous, actually. I don't know how the hell it happened. One day we're running around Metropolis together, Lois and Clark getting the scoop, the old team, you know? And the next, suddenly it's like I can hardly take my eyes off her."

"Funny how that happens," Lex remarks softly, thinking of Lana.

Clark doesn't notice his brief lapse in attention, still obviously wrapped up in thoughts of the feisty young woman he's obviously fallen hard for. "Thing is, I think I've felt this way for a lot longer than I knew," he says thoughtfully.

Lex smiles. "Well then, by all means, Clark, do something about it!"

"And ruin our partnership at the Planet? I don't think so!"

Lex doesn't know Lois all that well, so he refrains from trying to offer advice about how to win her affection. Instead, he suggests, "You weren't ready with Lana, but did you ever think that maybe the reason you couldn't take that leap was because she wasn't the right girl for you?"

Clark looks at him with guileless eyes. "I don't have to think that; I know it's true. But that doesn't mean Lois is, does it?"

"I don't think I can answer that question for you, Clark," Lex replies mirthfully, giving him a pointed look.

Clark's eyes spark up and he opens his mouth to speak, but what he was going to say, Lex never gets to find out. Martha Kent interrupts, exclaiming that something has happened to Lana, and a cold pit of fear forms in Lex's stomach...


	3. Reality Bending part 1

**A/N-** This is an AU one, exploring how Salvation might have gone another way. In this version of the episode, Lois's encounter with Zod and the Blur did _not_ end with a kiss and she never discovered Clark's dual identity. However, Clark _did_ end up ascending with the rest of the Kryptonians (as did Zod).  
>And in a little side note, just the single-sentence mention of Jimmy in this fic was enough to make me tear up. Damn, I miss that boy. He was my absolute favorite Smallville character, barring the legend that is Miss Lane herself. I am obviously not over his stupid, pointless death yet.<p>

This oneshot took an unexpected turn, and developed an entirely unexpected second segment. I hadn't envisioned the second part, and I'm not sure how I feel about it, so it will actually be posted in a few days as a separate chapter, so that you may take it as a part of this if you wish, or choose to ignore it if you like this just how it is.

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><p>[<em>Title<em>]: Reality Bending  
>[<em>Episode<em>]: general S9, but specifically Salvation  
>[<em>Characters<em>]: Lois, Clark, mentions others  
>[<em>Inspiration<em>]: Dual inspiration this time. The first came from wondering how Lois would react if Clark had ascended instead of making his extremely un-subtle messianic sacrifice. The second came from the fact that no matter how much I hate Rose Tyler, the idea of a woman walking across a hundred thousand universes for the sake of the man she loves is exquisite.

* * *

><p>"<em>I'll find you somewhere,<em>  
><em>I'll keep on trying until my dying day.<em>  
><em>I just need to know, whatever has happened<em>  
><em>The truth will free my soul.<em>  
><em>Wherever you are, I won't stop searching,<em>  
><em>Whatever it takes, I need to know..<em>."  
>-Within Temptation<p>

* * *

><p>It isn't what he expected. Though to be fair, he didn't really think too hard about what he would be going away to, far too wrapped up in what he would be leaving behind to give it much thought. Maybe he had imagined some parallel Krypton, or another world altogether. What they found was rather different. No red Rao in the sky or a new world to adjust to all over again for the Kandorians.<p>

They are on Earth. Sort of. A parallel Earth, he supposes you might call it. Humanity has never risen in this version of reality, leaving a pristine planet inhabited only by simpler animals.

He is grateful. It is at least somewhat familiar.

Even now, even with each and every Kryptonian fully possessed of the same powers and he still unable to master that last elusive ability that escaped him, he is revered among them. It was he who saw through Zod's lies, who saved them all, and the human race into the bargain.

He is proud of that. He is proud that when the time came to make a choice, he was strong enough to do what was right instead of what he desperately wanted to do. It seems, though, that it is his destiny to be the eternal outsider. Even among his own people, he stands apart. He cannot share in their memories of Krypton. His ways are not theirs.

He does his best. He learns their customs, he makes a point to participate in their daily life, to be as much a part of their world as he once was among humans. But the fact is... whatever blood they may share, these aren't really his people. It is a strange thing to realize that no matter which star he was born under, he really was human all along.

For the first few years, he is their de facto leader. He teaches them to cultivate the fertile land, just as his own father taught him. He guides them in the creation of a society from the ground up. Just as their planet becomes an interesting mix of Earth's natural beauty and Kryptonian crystal melded in an unexpectedly beautiful combination, theirs is a society built from a unique blend of Kryptonian structures and human ideals. They call it New Kandor and pledge to make it a paradise, never to succumb to the mistakes of their predecessors. Jor-El's wisdom guides them, their own storehouse of knowledge directs them, and he... he leads them.

But he was never meant to sit on high councils or help to transcribe seemingly endless codes of law. After three or four years pass, he begins to chafe against his new life- internally, of course. He doesn't let it show, because the Kandorians seem to need him.

Then, somehow, unbelievably, Kara finds them. It is a miracle to him. He has grown to care so much for his fellow Kryptonians, but Kara is family, and in some ways she is almost as human as he is. Her time on Earth affected her deeply, more than it did them, and in a way it makes her the perfect candidate to step into the role he has been filling. He never even realized it until she was there in front of him, but he understands that really, he was only holding the place for her until she arrived. She is far more Kryptonian than he can ever hope to be, but more human than most of the Kandorians, and she helps to bridge the gap beautifully.

With Kara in charge, he is able to fade into the background, and it is enough. He has his dear cousin with him, and a quiet life in a city called Faora built in the same location as Chicago on that other Earth.

The other life he used to live, that other man he used to be... they seem like dreams now. He remembers with absolute clarity that other Earth, and the baffling, wonderful humans who adopted him there.

The strong man, now gone, who was his rock in some of the darkest days of his young life. The warm, loving woman who raised him and taught him compassion. A dear friend he has hardly seen in years who was his first confidante. A newer friend, feckless and passionate and a determined protector of the weak, whose heroism inspired him to be more than he was. The bittersweet memory of a girl he used to love who vanished years ago into the darkness of her own quest for power. A bumbling, pure-hearted photographer who was probably a much better man than he. The best friend who was willing to give him her whole life because he needed her and the world needed him.

And... her.

She is the one he misses most of all. Fierce and soft and independent to a fault, all the best of humanity in one single, incredibly beautiful woman. Some things about his other life have faded into haziness in his memories, but every single second with her, from that first moment of clarity standing beside the empty grave of her cousin to their last painful conversation in the loft of an old barn, is seared in technicolor into his memory. Compared to these memories of a dauntless woman who shone like a second sun in her own right, the reality he interacts with on a day to day basis seems a little dreamlike. It's probably not healthy, but the memory of her is all he has to go on, and he was never one to love less than absolutely. Sometimes Kryptonian women have propositioned him, Vala in particular, but he does not pay them much attention.

It is in his fifth year on New Kandor that it happens.

He is wandering the Horn of Africa (strangely, it is one of the few landmarks called by its human moniker) when a there is a twist in the fabric of the world and a shimmer of blue and gold and then there she is.

He stares.

She stares.

"Clark?" she asks.

It is the first time he has heard that name in what feels like an eternity. He smiles. Immediately in sync with each other, they walk a short distance to a flat slab of sparkling crystal, incongruous to the African landscape but all too common after the melding of Earth and Krypton, and sit down. As they walk, he studies her. She is dressed in a white wife-beater and cargo pants that have seen better days. Her dark hair is straight and pulled away from her face in a high ponytail. She seems older. Not physically, because while she has perhaps aged just a bit, she can't possibly be older than 27, which is strange because she was 24 the last time he saw her and he's very sure it's been five years. No, it's in her eyes that the distance sits the heaviest. Something in her soul is older. It shows, too, in the way she carries herself. She always had a very faint military air to her carriage, but it's more obvious now, and her gaze, though warm as she looks at him, is also strangely hesitant, as if she's afraid to trust him.

The silence between them does not last long.

"Are you real?" he asks quietly.

She nods. He accepts this because she wouldn't lie, not to him.

"Are you _my _Clark?"

"What do you mean?"

She closes her eyes and takes a fortifying breath. "Every Clark has a Lois. Every Lois has a Clark. Mine, beautiful idiot that he is, left everyone he ever knew and loved to save two civilizations from destroying each other. I've seen some of this world and from the looks of things, I seem to be getting closer. So are you the Clark who used the Book of Rao to take the Kandorians away?"

He isn't quite sure he understands everything she says, but some parts he grasps immediately. "That's me," he says.

That hesitancy he saw in her falls away in an instant and those worried eyes fill with water.

"I gotta hand it to you, Smallville, you sure pick trustworthy friends," she says in a wavering voice. "Once I realized you'd disappeared, I badgered Chloe and Oliver for a week and they never breathed a word. But I got your mother to crack. She told me everything. She thought I deserved to know." Her overbright eyes are hard to read when she demands, "Why would you _do _that? The saving the world thing, I get. I wouldn't expect anything else from you. But _god_, Clark, why didn't you _say_ something? Something _besides_ 'Go to Africa, Lois,'?"

She stops very abruptly, and he can tell it's because she's on the verge of losing her visibly flagging control over her emotions, and he knows how much she hates that.

"I didn't want to hurt you any more than I was already going to," he explains. With the time separating him from that decision, it sounds so silly to his ears even as he says it.

She slaps him. "More than having you just vanish without a trace?"

Tears are pouring down her cheeks now and it pulls painfully at his heart. In seconds she has launched herself at him and she presses the briefest of kisses to his lips before she buries her head in the crook of his neck, arms around him. He hangs on for dear life as well, clinging to her as something in him that he didn't even realize had died comes bursting back to life.

"I've looked for you for so long," she whispers. "I-"

But he cuts her off, holding her closer. "Not yet," he tells her softly. "Please, Lois, I just..." There is a part of him that is clamoring for an explanation, but the rest of him is reeling in dizzy, happy circles inside. Holding her in his arms again acts as a balm for parts of his soul that have been hurting for so long, and in case this is all he ever gets, he wants to make the most of it.

"I know," she responds to his unfinished statement.

They stay like that for some time. Maybe it's five minutes, or maybe it's fifteen, and the bruises on his well-worn heart begin to disappear, one by one. It's nowhere near enough, but it'll do for now. At last they part, but her slender hand remains in his much larger one.

"How are you here?" he asks.

She smiles wryly. "That's a long story," she cautions.

"We have all the time in the world," he says, and he's not sure how his face hasn't cracked in half yet, he's smiling so hard. She always did manage to make him smile like nobody else.

And so she settles into the hollow under his arm, her head resting against his shoulder, and tells him a story he can hardly believe. She tells him how, although the world needed Clark Kent's sacrifice for a moment, it needs the Blur more. She tells him how _she _needed him more. She tells him how, after she wrung the truth out of his mother, she spent every free second scouring the rooftops of the high towers of Metropolis, searching for the Book of Rao, and how quite by chance, she actually found it. She tells him how Dr. Emil Hamilton and an elite team of specialists contracted by Oliver Queen put night and day efforts into cracking the alien technology. She tells him how, with the help of Chloe's rudimentary knowledge of the Kryptonian language, they were able to make some headway, but nowhere near enough.

"We didn't really make any major breakthroughs until... well, until Lana came back," she confesses. He looks startled at that, and she rolls her eyes. "Oh, chill, Smallville. I may want to gouge her eyes out for all the crap she put you through, but she and I were friends, too. Kind of. For Chloe's sake. Anyway, when she heard the reports that the Blur had disappeared from Metropolis without a trace, she came back to see what had happened. Once she found out what we were doing with the Book, she dredged up that Dr. Grohl character- you know, the alien tech expert she's been blackmailing into being her lapdog since, like, 2006- and with his expertise they made some serious headway."

She explains how they were able to narrow down the number of possible alternate dimensions he could have been relocated to from infinite to a mere twelve thousand. She shows him the two little discs she carries on her person which were the end result of the tests on the Book of Rao, one of which is keyed for trans-dimensional travel, and the other which acts as a homing beacon to carry her back to her proper universe when she's ready. She explains how, for the past two years (give or take- time runs differently between dimensions, so she's not entirely certain precisely how long it's been), she has been walking through realities, searching out thousands of Clark Kents and trying to find the one specific universe the Book of Rao dumped the Kandorians in.

"Bart wanted to come along," she says with a fond grin. "Actually, they all did, but he was particularly insistent."

"Why you?" he wonders.

"Isn't it obvious? I love you, you big idiot." He doesn't have time to process that before she sobers somewhat and adds, "Besides, you're my responsibility. I made a promise."

His brow wrinkles up in confusion. "What do you mean?"

Her look is wistful as she explains: "A few weeks before your dad died, he made me promise to look after you if anything happened to him. I haven't always been the best at that, but then this happened... Well, I had to follow you, didn't I?"

His heart breaks a little bit in the most amazing way, and he crushes her to him in a searing kiss. She meets him eagerly, burying her hands in his hair as they both try to pull each other closer than should be physically possible. Lips and tongues battle fiercely, both seeking dominance. His hands slide slowly up her sides, delighting in the feel of her. Without warning, the kiss slows into a more tender caress as a rush of deepest affection wells up in him for this brave, warm-hearted, _amazing_ woman who gives so freely of herself, and whose sincerity once again leaves him astounded. She whimpers softly into his mouth and he feels himself come undone all over again.

He breaks the kiss, pressing his forehead to hers with closed eyes, catching his breath. Her arms are wound around his neck, and he knows that she loves him. Somehow, despite his parents' assurances that he was loved no matter what world he had been born on, despite loyal friends and strong allies, there was always a part of him buried somewhere underneath it all that feared he was unlovable. Years of living among his own people has not helped that, because he is as alien to them as he ever was among humans. But Lois... Lois loves him, the same way she does everything: with absolute commitment. It is an amazing feeling. He's not quite sure how that happened. How long were they actually together? Five months? Maybe six, at a stretch? Six months together, preceded by five years of a relationship that no one- themselves least of all- had ever quite been able to put a label on, and somehow she loves him.

She talks of worlds where Krypton was never lost, or where Lois Lane _was_; of worlds where they are together, of worlds where they are not; of worlds where he has found her but will never allow himself to have her; of worlds where he is human, of worlds where he has given up his powers, of worlds where he walks as a god among men; utopias side by side with dystopic hells, and everything in between. But the one constant he notes is that no matter what the universe, if it was at all possible, Clark Kent and Lois Lane found each other. If he were anyone else, if he had lived any other life, he might not have believed her. But as she talks of the confused young Kal-El who ran away through the portal to Earth in a rebellious quest to find his place in the universe and stumbled across the young army brat who was as lost and unsure as he was, he can believe it. He can imagine, in these other men who are somehow also him, the same feeling of willingness to move heaven and earth to see the love that is shining up at him in her eyes.

But it wasn't him who tore down the barriers of reality to make it happen, not this time. It was her. It was Lois Lane who gave the entire universe what-for and went running through space and time looking for him.

And when she finishes her long narration, she looks up at him and asks, "What now?"

He ponders. Kara is here to guide the Kandorians with the wisdom and strength her unusual life has given her, and he... well, he was always meant for Earth, not Krypton. He has a few things he needs to do first. He's not going to simply disappear from New Kandor the way he did from Earth. But once he's done what he needs to do, there is another life that lures him in like a siren song.

"Now, we go home," he says.

* * *

><p><strong>AN-** Stay tuned for Reality Bending pt 2!


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